Prime Minister's Office
English rendering of PM’s address at the launch of physical distribution of Property Cards under the SVAMITVA Scheme
Today, I congratulate those one lakh people who have received and downloaded the SVAMITVA letters or property cards of their homes. Today when you would be sitting with your family, having food in the evening, I am sure, you would be happy like never before. You will be able to tell your children proudly that 'see, now this is your property, you are going to inherit it'. We didn't have papers for what we had inherited from our ancestors, but today we feel a lot empowered after receiving the papers. This evening is of great joy for you, of weaving new dreams and discussing about the new dreams to the children. Therefore, I congratulate all of you for the rights that you have got today.
This right is in some way a legal document. Your house belongs to you; you will live in your house. You will decide what to do with your house. Neither the government can interfere nor the people of the neighbourhood. This scheme is going to bring historic changes in the villages of our country. We all are a witness to the same.
Today in this programme, my cabinet colleague Shri Narendra Singh Tomar ji, Chief Minister of Haryana Shri Manohar Lal ji, Deputy CM Shri Dushyant Chautala ji, Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Shri Trivendra Singh Rawat ji, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Shri Yogi Adityanath ji, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan ji, the Ministers of various states and the beneficiaries of the SVAMITVA scheme are also present here with us today. And as Narendra Singh ji was saying, more than 1.25 crore people have got the registry done and have joined us in this programme. This means that the participation of so many villagers in this virtual meeting today is a proof of how attractive is this SVAMITVA scheme, how powerful and important it is!
Today, the country has taken another major step in the direction of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. The SVAMITVA scheme is going to be of great help in making our brothers and sisters from the villages self-reliant. Today, thousands of families in Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh have been handed over the legal papers of their homes. In the next three-four years, an attempt will be made to give such a property card to every household in every village of the country.
And friends, I am very happy that such a great work has been undertaken on today. This day is very significant. This day holds a great significance in the history of India. Today is the birth anniversary of two great sons of the country - One Bharat Ratna Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan and the other Bharat Ratna Nanaji Deshmukh. Not only the birthdays of these two great men fall on the same date, but both these great personalities also shared a similar ideology like fighting against corruption in the country, working for honesty, working for the poor in the country and for the welfare of the villages. Both of them had the same ideals and their efforts too were the same.
Jayaprakash Babu had called for total revolution. And the voice that had emanated from the land of Bihar; the dreams which Jayaprakash ji had seen, had inspired Nanaji to work for the development of the villages. Jayaprakash Babu remained the source of inspiration for Nanaji. Now look at the strange coincidence! Raising the voice of the village and the poor had been a shared vision of Jayaprakash Babu and Nanaji.
I had read somewhere that when Dr. Kalam had met Nanaji Deshmukh in Chitrakoot, Nanaji had told him that dozens of villages around the area were completely free from lawsuits i.e. there was no FIR against anyone. Nanaji used to say that when the people of the village remain trapped in disputes, they could develop neither themselves nor the society. I believe that the SVAMITVA scheme will also become a major medium of ending various disputes in our villages.
Friends,
A lot of experts all over the world have been emphasizing that the ownership of land and house plays a major role in the development of the country. When there is a record of property, when the people receive rights over their property, then the property is protected; the life of the citizen is also protected and the confidence of the citizen gets boosted manifold. When there is a record of property, there are a lot of opportunities for investment, new venture and a new economic planning.
Loan is easily available from the bank based on the record of property, and new paths of employment and self-employment are created. But the problem is that only one-third of the population in the world has a legal record of their property today. Two-thirds of people around the world do not have it. In such a situation, it is very important for the people of a developing country like India to have an accurate record of their property. And those who are in their old age, not literate, and have lived a difficult life, are now going to start a new life of confidence.
SVAMITVA scheme and the property card available under it, is a huge step in the direction of ensuring the welfare of the exploited, deprived villagers. The property card will help the villagers to buy and sell property without getting into any dispute. After getting the property card, the people of the village will be free from the fear of their homes getting captured. Someone coming and showing their rights with fake papers- all of that will stop now. After getting the property card, you will get easy loans from the banks on the village houses too.
Friends,
Today we have so many young men from the villages who want to start something on their own; they want to become self-reliant. But in spite of having a house and a piece of land, they didn't have any papers or government document. No one was willing to listen to them. They did not get anything. Now this paper is in their hands and they can get loan and ask for it rightfully. Now by showing the property card made under the SVAMITVA scheme, it is very easy to get loans from banks.
Friends,
Another benefit of this SVAMITVA letter is regarding the development of new facilities in the village. With the new technology like drone mapping and survey, accurate land record of every village can also be done. And when I was talking to the officers during the beginning of the project, I was told by the officers that when they used to fly a drone for mapping a property inside the village, while it is natural for the villagers to have some interest over their land but everyone wanted to see the whole village with the help of a drone. They wanted to see how their village looked like. And the officials said that for them it had become compulsory to show their village from the top for a while. It used to ignite the love for the villages.
Brothers & sisters,
Until now, there was no clarity over the where to build the schools, hospitals, markets or other public facilities in most of the villages. Only the free will of the official or the Pradhan or some powerful person there used to work. Everything would be done based on their whims. Now that the map is ready, everything about the construction will be decided with ease. There will not be any dispute. And due to the accurate land record, all the work related to the development of the village will be done very easily.
Friends,
For the past 6 years, several efforts have been going on to strengthen our Panchayati Raj system, and that will also be strengthened with the SVAMITVA scheme. Gram Panchayats have the responsibility of planning and implementing many schemes. Now the people of the village themselves are deciding what is required for the development of their village and how to solve the problems there.
All the work of panchayats is also being done online now. Moreover, Geo-tagging has been made compulsory for all development works done by Panchayat. If a well is constructed, then even my office here would know in which corner the well is constructed. It is a blessing of technology. And it is compulsory. Geo-tagging will be done when the toilets are constructed, when a school is built. Geo tagging will be done if a small dam is built. As a result, diversion of money will stop. Everything has to be shown and can be seen.
Friends,
The SVAMITVA plan will make village management easier for our gram panchayats in a systematic way, just like the municipalities and municipal corporations. The gram panchayats will not only get the help from the government for developing the facilities in the village, but also will be able to raise resources in the village itself. In a way, the documents being provided to the residents of the village will also help in strengthening the gram panchayats.
Friends,
It is always said that the soul of India resides in the villages, but the truth is that the villages of India were left to their own fate. Which place was facing hardship most due to lack of toilets? It was the villages. Which place suffered the most due to lack of electricity? It was the villages. Who had to live in the dark? The villagers! Where was the compulsion to cook on fuel wood? In the villages! Who were the people that were left out from the banking system? The villagers!
Friends,
The people who have been in power for so many years had made tall promises but had left the village and the poor people from the villages in trouble. I cannot do the same. With your blessings, I will do whatever I can for you. I want to work for you. I want to do a lot for the villages; I want to work for the poor; I want to work for the afflicted, the exploited and the deprived so that they do not have to depend on anyone. They should not be slaves of others' will.
But friends,
In the last 6 years, to solve every such issue, we have started working one by one and have delivered results to the villages and the poor. Today the country is developing without any discrimination. Everyone is getting the benefits of the schemes with complete transparency.
A scheme like SVAMITVA could have been made earlier. I understand very well, at that time there would not have been drones but the solutions could have been thought of by sitting together with the villagers but that did not happen. If this had happened, there would not have been any middlemen, corruption, brokers, or any kind of compulsion. The strength of the scheme that has been formulated now is technology i.e. drones. Earlier the brokers used to dominate the ground mapping field, but now the mapping is being done with the drones. What the drone sees is being recorded on paper.
Friends,
The work done in the last six years for the residents of the villages was not done even in the six decades after independence. Crores of people in the villages were deprived of bank accounts for six decades. These accounts have been finally created now. Crores of people in the villages had no electricity connection for six decades. Today electricity has finally reached every household. For six decades, crores of families in the villages were deprived of toilets. Today, toilets have also been built in several households.
Friends,
For decades the poor of the villages could not even think of a gas connection. Today, the gas connection has also reached the poor's house. For decades, crores of families in the villages did not have a home of their own. Today about 2 crore poor families have got pucca houses and I am putting all my efforts to ensure that those who are left out will also receive their pucca houses very soon. For decades, no one could imagine piped water supply in village houses. Our mothers and sisters had to carry heavy pots of water on their heads walking several kilometres. Now water has reached every household. Today, Jal-Jeevan Mission is being run to deliver piped drinking water to 15 crore such households in the country. A huge campaign is also going on to spread the network of optical fibres in every village of the country. Earlier people used to say that electricity was intermittent. Now people complain that connection in the mobile phones is weak and intermittent. The solution to these problems lies in optical fibre.
Friends,
Where there is scarcity, the pulls and pressures by powerful forces keep troubling people. The history says that keeping the villages and the poor in the midst of scarcity has been the political strategy for some people. We have launched a campaign to liberate the poor from deprivation.
Brothers and sisters,
Such people feel that if the villages, the poor, the farmers and the tribals become empowered then no one will go to them; their business will shut down and nobody will beg of them. Therefore, they wanted the problems of the villages and the people to remain intact so that they could continue with their work. Therefore, it became their habit to delay and stall the ongoing work.
Nowadays, these people also have problems with the historic reforms related to farming sector. Those people are scared. But now the country has begun to understand that their fears have nothing to do with the farmers. The countrymen have started to break the chain and the systems of middlemen, bribery, brokers, which had been created for generations and to demolish their plans and intentions.
While on one hand the arms of crores of Indians are engaged in the development of a New India, the true colours of such people are also being exposed on the other. The country has started recognizing the people who were involved in looting the country. That's why these people are opposing everything nowadays. They are neither worried about the poor, nor concerned about the village or the country. They are having an issue with every good work. These people want to stop the development of the country. These people do not want our villages, the poor, our farmers, our labourer brothers and sisters to become self-reliant. Today we have raised the MSP by 1.5 times that they could not do. Those whose source of black money has been sealed due to Kisan Credit Cards for farmers, livestock farmers & fishermen, are finding it difficult today. Neem-coating of urea is causing problems for those whose illegal practices have been stopped. Those who are facing problems due to direct benefit transfer to the bank accounts of the farmers, are restless today. Those who have problems with farmers and farm labourers receiving facilities like insurance and pension are opposing agricultural reforms today. But the farmer is not ready to go with them; the farmer has recognized them.
Friends,
No matter how much lies are being spread by these people who play politics with the help of these brokers, middlemen and bribe-takers, the country is not going to stop. The country is determined to make the village and the poor self-reliant and to recognize the potential of India.
The SVAMITVA scheme plays a major role in the realization of this resolution. And so today, I congratulate the one lakh families who have got the benefit of the SVAMITVA scheme in such a short time. And I would also congratulate Narendra Singh ji and his entire team today. I would also congratulate those who have done such a major work in such a short time. It is not a small task, going from village to village and that too during this lockdown and doing this job. We cannot thank them enough!
And I am confident that by the kind of work that has been done by every official at every level of this government, we will not have to wait for four years. We can probably give it to the whole country even before that. Because it is such a huge task and when I had proposed this in April, I thought I was demanding a little too much. But they have done more than what I had asked for. And that's why my heartiest congratulations to the entire team of Narendra Singh ji and all the people in his department. And at the same time, today, the families of those who have received this benefit have developed a sense of confidence; the joy on your face is the greatest satisfaction for me. Your happiness is the cause of my happiness. The opportunity that has arisen in your life to achieve your dreams is going to help me in realizing my dreams.
And so, brothers and sisters, I am happier than you are because today one lakh families have stood with confidence in front of the world with the papers of their property. This is a great opportunity and that too on JP's birthday, Nana ji's birthday. What could be more blissful than this?
I wish you all the best… but at the same time we are campaigning all over the country on wearing masks, social distancing and frequent washing of hands with soap during the Corona pandemic. We don't want you, your family and your village to be ill. We are concerned about it and we know that this disease has no medicine in the world yet.
You are my family ... and therefore I request you, ‘Jab tak dawai nahi, tab tak dhilai nahi’ . Do not forget this mantra. With this same belief, I once again wish you all the happiness, all the joy and my best wishes!
Thanks a lot!